Alone On The Water
by KatieK101
Summary: Mousewhisker knows he's broken; he sees their faces in his nightmares. He thinks he's the only one who isn't alright, until he discovers Ivypool one night, stumbling over her own sobs and pinned down by enemies that aren't truly there. / Or, He missed the signs with Hollyleaf and she died twice. (PTSD)


**Alone on the Water**

* * *

_Up at night I'm awake 'cause it haunts me_  
_That I never got to say what I wanted_  
_I'm not the same as I was with you_  
_I would jump out my skin just to get you_

_\- Capsize, Emily Warren, Frenship_

* * *

The rational side of Mousewhisker knows that his Clanmates aren't waiting for him to leave so that they can whisper, "Look, there he goes" and "Can you believe he murdered his own friends?" to each other.

Unfortunately, it's the irrational side of Mousewhisker that tends to speak the loudest these days.

Hazeltail: his own sister.

Foxleap: his dawn patrol buddy.

Icecloud: his bubbly voice of reason.

Hollyleaf: his_..._

During the sunlight hours, when he's alone in the forest, he finds himself talking aloud to them. Guilt makes his blood burn when he catches himself; he might not have been the one to slice their throats open and drain their life, but he might as well have.

Nightfall is worse. He sees their faces in his nightmares, bloody and swollen and bruised, and he bolts awake mumbling their names under his breath, again and again, over and over. Like a routine.

His rational side whispers that everyone is a little bit broken after the Dark Forest Battle. His other side wails, because he is broken and alone.

_No one else has nightmares, do they?_ a voice taunts him. _Everyone else has moved on, haven't they?_ And, _you're the only one still broken. _

_I'm a warrior,_ he thinks desperately to himself. _I'm supposed to be strong for my Clanmates! How am I supposed to be the best warrior I can be if I can't even sleep through the night?_

**Alone on the Water**

His nightmares don't usually bother his Clanmates; he doesn't wail in his sleep like the faces in his dreams do. But one night, after he watches Hazeltail crumple to the ground for the hundredth time, he bolts awake and accidentally jostles Poppyfrost in the process.

"Mousewhisker?" she murmurs, voice thick with sleep. "Are you alright?"

He swallows her name, forces himself not to mutter it again and again, over and over, like a routine, and lies instead, "I'm fine. I just had a… weird dream."

Poppyfrost is nice, perfectly nice, so she won't scold him for waking her up.

Berrynose, however, is not so nice.

His brother - _his only littermate_ \- raises his head, and even though he must be half-asleep he still manages a hateful glare. "Well take your weird dreams outside," he hisses quietly. "Some of us would like to _sleep._"

Mousewhisker doesn't have a famous temper, but lately he's been uncharacteristically irritable and Berrynose seems to bring out the worst in him, these days. He wants to snap at _his only littermate_, demand to know if he dreams about their dead sister (the one who had _so much_ to live for…), but he catches himself just in time. The rest of his Clanmates are still asleep, and he doesn't fancy anymore of those hateful glares.

So instead he huffs, shoots Berrynose a glare of his own, and then tiptoes out of the Warriors' Den. Poppyfrost calls softly after him, but Berrynose hushes her.

Mousewhisker imagines he tells her, "Let him go, Poppyfrost. You don't want to sleep next to a traitor anyway."

**Alone on the Water **

He hates how comfortably he moves in the dark. Hates how his eyes adjust easily to the night after moons of practice; hates how he isn't certain about anything anymore yet doesn't falter as he weaves through the night.

He hates himself, really.

(Icecloud would tell him not to because she thinks he's wonderful, but Icecloud isn't here anymore, is she?)

_Mouse-brained Berrynose,_ Mousewhisker thinks aggressively to himself. _What does he know? Doesn't he think that I want to sleep too? Does he think that I asked for these mouse-brained nightmares? _Then, because it's too easy to blame everyone else for his trauma, he adds, _What do any of them know? _

_They don't talk to themselves. They don't see their faces at night. They don't move sure-footedly through the dark, even though they have no right to. _

A wave of depression chases away his anger. _I'm broken, _he thinks, miserable_. I'm supposed to be a warrior; a fighter, a protector, a provider, but how can I do any of that when I'm so broken? _

_Broken, broken, broken, _like a chant. _Broken, broken, broken-_

"_-broken." _

Mousewhisker halts, immediately on guard and alert at the first sign of suspicion, like a _good little Dark Forest trainee_. That voice didn't belong to him.

And neither do the sobs that follow it.

Confusion forces Mousewhisker to relax slightly. Alright, it wasn't an intruder or a stray Dark Forest warrior, then. A lost, frightened kit, perhaps?

The sobs seem to grow louder and he decides to investigate. Cautiously, he follows the fractured sounds and shivers when they send chills up his spine; they weren't the cries of a frightened kit, but _something else_.

He isn't sure what to expect when he finally uncovers the mystery, but it wasn't _this_.

Ivypool is curled up in the dirt, stumbling over sobs that don't make sense to him. Her pelt is tangled with burrs and thorns, like she started running and didn't try to avoid the undergrowth, and Mousewhisker has never been more confused.

"Ivypool?" he calls. She doesn't respond; her shoulders continue to shake.

Now he's alarmed. _Can she hear me? _He takes a cautious step forward, then another, until he's by her side. "Ivypool," he tries again, a little louder this time. "Ivypool, what happened?"

"It's my fault," she cries, though he isn't sure she's actually talking to _him_. "I-It's all my fault!"

"What is?" Mousewhisker presses. He nudges her shoulder with his muzzle and she flinches from him, and her sobs come so hard that she chokes on them.

"_Don't touch me_!" she screams, and guilt shoots through him like lightning. "_Get away from me_! We _won_! Just-" she gasps, like the air is knocked out of her lungs, "just _l-leave me alone_!"

Mousewhisker steps backwards, eyes wide. He'd never seen anyone, _much less Ivypool_, like this before. Like she was pinned down by invisible enemies.

_Oh_. Something clicks into place. _Oh_. _Oh StarClan. _

He isn't the only one who's broken.

Ivypool still hasn't truly acknowledged him, so it's safe to assume that for some reason, she can't hear or see him. That complicates his position, but… he can't just _leave her _here! So he circles her for a moment, racking his head for a plan of action, and finally settles for what he would want: comfort.

He carefully lays down beside her, mindful not to let their pelts brush. "Ivypool," he murmurs, and hopes she finds his tone soothing. "Ivypool, you're alright; it's okay. You're safe. No one is going to hurt you." _I won't let them hurt you. I won't let them hurt anyone else. _

Her sobs don't cease, but they soften in the slightest. Maybe she doesn't realize it's Mousewhisker who's with her, but maybe she realizes that _someone_ is. That's enough encouragement for Mousewhisker to keep whispering to her, until even he doesn't recognize the words falling from his mouth.

"_Shhhh_, it's okay… you're going to be okay…"

"No one is trying to hurt you. The Dark Forest is gone."

"You were so brave. I wish I was as brave as you."

"You saved the Clans. We owe our lives to you."

"I know it hurts. I know you feel broken. I know…"

Slowly, painfully slow, Ivypool begins to calm down. Her fractured sobs melt into cries, then soften to whimpers. Her shoulders stop shaking; her whole body ceases trembling. By the time dawnlight creeps forward to banish the shadows for the day, Ivypool is sleeping soundly.

Exhausted as he is, sleep is the furthest thing from Mousewhisker's mind.

He runs his tongue mindlessly down Ivypool's silver-and-white fur as he untangles it; gently tugging out brambles and thorns as he worked. Meanwhile, his thoughts continue to roam freely.

_She's like me, _he thinks, as he grooms the she-cat he found wailing in the woods. _She understands how I feel. I'm not the only broken warrior in ThunderClan; she __understands__! _

Part of him feels guilty for finding relief in his Clanmate's suffering, but he couldn't quell it. He isn't alone! There was someone else who _understands_ him!

_I wonder if she sees their faces at night, too? _Not likely, if her cries were anything to go by; she wouldn't be trying to fight her own Clanmates, or tell them to leave her alone. No, it was much more likely that she was seeing… _other faces_.

Steel swims through Mousewhisker's bloodstream. "I won't let you feel alone ever again," he swore, even as Ivypool sleeps. "From now on, I'm going to make sure that you don't face them alone. You're-... _we're _going to get through this. Together."

_Why? _A quiet voice wonders.

_Because she's like me, _Mousewhisker reasons. He doesn't delve any deeper than that, because even if he does feel steadfast for the first time since the Dark Forest Battle, he still isn't quite ready to face _that_ particular demon.

(Hollyleaf would face it. She didn't back down from anything...)

According to Mousewhisker, Hollyleaf died twice. The first when she was crushed by the tunnels caving in, and again when Hawkfrost sliced her throat open.

He wasn't in camp to protect her from Hawkfrost, but before the cave in, their nests were only a tail-length apart. Her breathing lulled him to sleep countless nights. He never imagined that she was fighting her own demons; never tried to help her, because he never knew she needed help.

He missed the signs with Hollyleaf, and she died twice. He'd been too late.

He isn't too late to help Ivypool, though.

(... but Hollyleaf was dead.)

* * *

**So awhile back I wrote a Five Truths about Mousewhisker. One of his truths was about finding Ivypool in the woods, crying, and how he stays by her side afterwards (because he didn't do so with Hollyleaf). I haven't been able to get that image out of my head since I wrote it, and I actually started writing this today in my British Lit class, and when I came home and could properly flesh it out, everything just flowed. **

**This is a one-shot. For now, at least. I do have a storyline to work with here, but between revising/writing The Impossible Life of a SkyClan Warrior, Written in the Shadows, and a new fic, I don't have time to focus on _another_ full-length fic. However, I thought this functioned well enough as a one-shot, so here you go! **

**Definitely review and let me know what you guys think about it, and if you would like to see it eventually made into a fic! :) **

*** _Just for any clarification_, Mousewhisker and Ivypool both suffer from PTSD thanks to their time spent in the Dark Forest. (Maybe others do too, maybe they don't...) I always thought a PTSD!fic, if done correctly, would be a really interesting read. I'm not a big fan Ivypool, Lionblaze, Dovewing, etc, but seriously... if you don't think Ivypool had some major issues after the Battle, you're kidding yourself. **

*** _Further clarification_, you can view Hollyleaf/Ivypool as romantic interests for Mousewhisker, or they can be completely platonic. Up to you, although I was leaning towards romantic when I wrote this. Icecloud wasn't meant to be romantic, but I like them as a couple too, so if you want it to be romantic then go for it! It's not our fault that Mousewhisker is such an eligible bachelor! :)**

**~ Katie**


End file.
